Visit Shenandoah

The Shenandoah Valley is a lush mountain range that stretches across Virginia & West Virginia. Visit Shenandoah approached us looking to improve the website they use for tourism in the region.

Details

In 2016, Visit Shenandoah decided their site had gotten overly complex and not achieving the goals they had set. Using analytics, user interviews, and live testing, we developed a better understanding what was most important for visitors. With this in mind, we streamlined the new sites structure, significantly reducing friction for the user.

Roles

Design - Matt Stay

Development - Adam Hake

Project Management - Matt Crom

Agency - Joel Erb / INM United

Organizing a large site

Built organically over time, new sections had been slowly added to Visit Shenandoah. This led to a large amount of content and complex site structure. I mapped the original site first to get a sense of how much content we we're working with.

Simplified Navigation

Based on how users were interacting with the site currently, we pared down the navigation to the most critical sections. Secondary areas that focused on more specialized areas such as weddings or group events were given their own callouts.

Custom Map

We built an interactive map to more easily navigate the various regions in the shenandoahs. Each section links to a page about the region, with associated restuarants, events, contacts and directions.